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The
Real Y2K Nightmare
by
Art Hilgart
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In
January 2000, the Red Army, exasperated by continued unpaid wages,
the insult to patriotism of the dissolution of the USSR, and the
chaos of the Russian economy, deposed the Yeltsin government, and
recalled Gorbachev and Primakov as figureheads in a new Communist
regime, which proceeded to re-socialize public property, crush the
mafia, and demand return of the billions stashed abroad by the capitalist
oligarchs. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, wishing to save the fortunes
and powers of the oligarchs, began bombing Moscow, calling the attacks
a NATO exercise to protect democracy and the free market and to
destroy Bolshevism once and for all.
When
the world was distracted by these events, Israel sent Jews in motor
homes to settle in every town on the West Bank, thus removing them
from inclusion in a possible Palestinian state. (Tel Aviv had been
secretly buying thousands of specially armored mobile homes from
a factory in Indiana for this purpose.) In the United States, crackpots
from the Aryan Nation, the Michigan Militia, and the Priests of
Phineas then took to the highways with grenade launchers, and proceeded
to incinerate hundreds of families traveling in recreational vehicles.
Most
of the trial lawyers in America joined in a class action suit on
behalf of millions of RV owners against the entire automobile and
RV industries, for manufacturing unsafe vehicles. All fifty states
declared martial law and began rounding up loonies. Because the
courts were gridlocked by these actions, local police everywhere
began arresting any black male between fifteen and thirty, keeping
them in concentration camps until their spurious "war on drugs"
cases could be brought to trial.
Alan
Greenspan, reacting to the large increase in military spending and
fearing the inflationary potential of huge deficits in the federal
budget, raised interest rates to twenty per cent. The construction
industry came to an abrupt halt, and ripple effects caused U. S.
unemployment to jump to twenty-five per cent, which led to increased
membership in the Aryan Nation, the Michigan Militia, and the Priests
of Phineas.
The
American press, from Rush Limbaugh to NPR, supported the NATO attacks,
although some Democrats urged Clinton to avoid killing civilians,
if possible, and the Republicans called the action "too little and
too late." Academic papers urging more high-tech training as the
corrective to unemployment proliferated, along with others exploring
possible reasons for the extraordinary increase in apparent drug
use by young African American males. The Wall Street Journal opined
that public funding of parochial schools would restore lost moral
values and bring discipline and order among the millions of new
homeless families, while the American Psychiatric and Psychological
Associations saw an increased need for unlimited public funding
of mental health therapy.
Russia
responded to the NATO attacks by firing nuclear missiles. Although
none of the defective weapons reached the U. S., several exploded
in arctic glaciers, causing an abrupt increase in fresh water in
the Atlantic ocean. This diverted the Gulf Stream hundreds of miles
to the south, initiating a European ice age, and the radioactive
water killed most of the fish.
The
sudden onset of cold exhausted European fuel supplies and the sharply
increased price of oil strained governments and bankrupted thousands
of businesses, while the loss of edible fish and poor harvests created
widespread food shortages and hunger. The chaos and privation produced
a religious revival, and many called for a new Crusade, to pacify
God by retaking the Holy Land for Christianity and to solve the
economic crisis by restoring European control of Middle Eastern
oil reserves.
And
that is the end of the news. Further details are lost in the historical
mist of the Second Dark Ages.
ahilgart@kzoo.edu
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